Fitzgerald's hands elevate his status

by Bob McManaman - Jan. 28, 2009 09:56 PMThe Arizona Republic

TAMPA - Larry Fitzgerald doesn't have the whole world in his hands. It just seems like it.

The way he pulls footballs out of the sky is becoming legendary. It could be immortalized Sunday in Super Bowl XLIII if the Cardinals receiver continues his postseason pattern with another clutch performance.

Already having surpassed Jerry Rice's NFL record for most receiving yards (419) in the playoffs (in the same number of games, three, that Rice needed), Fitzgerald's transformation from great player to megastar in a month is among the faster climbs by an athlete in pro sports history.

And it's all because of the hands. They're so big you lose sight of your own hand when he reaches out to shake it. Footballs don't stand a chance, either. Fitzgerald doesn't just catch them; he devours them.

Multiply that with his vision and incredible timing to catch the ball at the high point of his leap, and it's almost not fair to defensive backs.

"When you have a guy like Larry Fitzgerald who can outjump two guys to get to the football, there is nothing you can do about that," Steelers safety Troy Polamalu said. "You just have to realize that he is a great player."

Peers applaud

Former NFL receiver Cris Collinsworth was even more complimentary in his review.

"He's off the charts with his ability to make plays on the ball in the air," he said. "I don't know what his vertical leap is, but he looks like Michael Jordan playing out there to me.

"If it's a tie, you just throw it up in the air, and Larry Fitzgerald comes down with it. He just has remarkable hands."

Fitzgerald, 25, said it isn't all by accident. Yes, he was blessed with some amazing natural talent. But it has taken constant extra effort to get the maximum potential out of his catching ability.

"I wasn't born with the greatest speed," he said, "so things I did have, I had to hone those other skills and make them better. To catch the ball better, I had to make my hands better. I had to do something that was going to separate me from everybody else."

He has done that so well, they ought to use him as the new pitchman for Allstate. "Are you in good hands?" The Cardinals are, thanks to Fitzgerald.

He made them stronger, he said, simply by catching extra balls every day, from the time he was a kid.

"I'll catch a ton of balls before, during and after practice," he says. "And from every different angle, too, so when I get in the game, no matter where the ball is, how it's placed or where the defensive back is, I'm confident I'll be making plays because I've done it in practice. When I get into the game, I want it to be just natural."

Steel hurtin'?

It doesn't look natural, the way he snatches footballs as if they were dandelion fuzz floating gently on the breeze. That's why the Steelers and defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau have put in extra time trying to design a way to contain Arizona's leaping star.

"I know Pittsburgh is going to have a great scheme to try and slow him down," Cardinals offensive coordinator Todd Haley said. "It's pretty clear he's made a lot of plays for us, so I don't think it's going to be easy.

"But Larry makes it look easy at times. Even when he has two defenders on him, he's so good that it makes it look easy."

Fitzgerald had plenty of help along the way, even before his days as a ballboy for the Minnesota Vikings, when he learned about the art of receiving from a couple of greats in Cris Carter and Randy Moss.

Fitzgerald's grandfather, Robert Johnson, taught him the tools of "visual dominance." The founder of an optometry clinic in Chicago, Johnson often worked with his grandson on hand-eye coordination techniques. One of his exercises involved hanging a ball with colored dots from the ceiling and having Fitzgerald hit the corresponding colors with the matching colored stripes on a rolling pin.

"I think those skills are definitely paying dividends for me," said Fitzgerald, who wears eyeglasses off the field. "My eyes are good, and I think he had a hand in helping me get there."

Carter, an ESPN analyst, said Fitzgerald still hasn't reached his peak. For that to happen, Fitzgerald's mentor said, he'd have to be able to catch the ball better than Carter ever did.

"And he can't catch better than me, and the reason why is he hasn't mastered the ability to catch the ball in the game with one hand. He doesn't have enough confidence to be able to do that yet," Carter said. "But are those hands the best in the game right now? I'd say yes, definitely."